Small/Big World

exhibitions, projects, events

Small/Big World project was based on the observation that our society, including the art world, is made up of small groups of people, close-friend circles where everybody knows everybody. A few external links connect these groups and prevent them from being isolated. These are the so-called “weak-ties” (Mark Granovetter). Weak ties connect not only individuals, but different and distanced worlds, and are essential for holding together the social network. According to network theory, we actually live in a small world, where the path-length between two distant nodes of the network is rather short; as a result, strangers can be linked by a short chain of acquaintances. However, even if short connections do exist, for most of people they are hard to find. In order to have many links, a community needs specific ways and contexts in which people can create them.

The Small/Big World project aimed to offer the Bratislava art scene a communication and collaboration platform where people can creatively use the benefits of existing relationships, such as friendships, and open them up towards new ties and horizons. Preliminary concepts of the project were friendship as a form of co-working, collaboration outside one’s close circle and the art field, the transformative potential of an encounter, and sharing as the re-definition of interpersonal relationships around a collective dimension.